It’s 4:30 in the morning and my husband and I are awoken by cries from our 11-month-old son in his room. He has taken to an early wake-up for quite a few weeks and despite knowing that he’s been sick and teething and that babies simply have no schedule but their own, I think to myself, “Shouldn’t he be sleeping through the night?” My husband brings him to me to nurse and slips back into bed. Although this trial of losing sleep is trivial I pray, “Lord, we have given up everything and followed you.”

The other day we got the news that our car needs another expensive repair. My husband and I analyzed our budget: there’s the mortgage, daycare, food, regular car expenses, and student loans. We also want to have more children and show them the world, and we want to give so much more to our community than we currently are, but where is there room in our constantly strained budget? I express my fear and I cling to the words, “Lord, we have given up everything and followed you.”

Today’s Gospel catches us right after a rich man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, and “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me’” (Mark 10:21). I can hear Peter, filled with earnest love and total concern as he looks up to Jesus and begins to say the opening line of today’s Gospel: “We have given up everything and followed you.” He has left his family and career to serve Jesus. He is traveling with these men and learning from Jesus every day. His faith is tested, and he fails multiple times – walking on and beginning to drown in the sea and eventually to deny the Lord not once, but three times over at His Passion. Despite these failings, I imagine the Lord’s tenderness and faithfulness as he looks to Peter and says:

“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. But many that are first will be last, and [the] last will be first.” (Mark 10:29-31)

This is the promise of the Christian life: the gift of hope that comes with the witness of the Gospel and the life of Christ. Despite our sufferings, trials, and sacrifices, there’s the promise of eternal life with Jesus where every ache of our heart will be healed and every thirst satiated. Consider the fear and hurt, for example, of those who feel called to marriage, but haven’t yet found “the one.” Or how about the tears an infertile couple might shed for all the babies they have never held? God fills these holes and seals them one hundred times over. Even something that seems trivial, such as a failing grade, a mistake at work, or sleep lost during a 4:30 a.m. nursing session – even those losses will be fulfilled in ways that we cannot imagine. It’s hard to fathom how that wholeness is possible in our broken world, but as Jesus reminds us: “All things are possible for God” (Mark 10:27).

In contemplating Jesus’ promise to us, this call to the Christian life, and our goal of striving towards heaven, we know that this work is not easy or glamorous, but it can be holy if we let it. In your everyday yeses to sacrifices big and small, God promises you a lifetime with Him. Do not lose hope when you make a sacrifice or you feel the hurt in your heart: it is seen and felt and loved by the Lord. He uses those feelings to bring you closer to Him and His promises. He wants to love you in your sacrifices. The Lord promises to bring His goodness through your holy work as you choose Him each day (Romans 2:6-10). And it is in that love that we can sacrifice with the confidence of Christian hope and gratitude, “Lord, we have given up everything and followed you.”